“Could we decide it face to face, man to man, I should have no fear of the issue, ruined as I am,” he said, looking down at his sword arm, “for he is very sick, Grothusen, and worn out by many vices. He has a camp follower for his wife, an idiot, rebellious son—after all, I would not be the Czar of Russia.”
Then with an effort to put so bitter a subject from his mind he turned sharply to his friend.
“How much money do we owe?” he asked.
Grothusen named a sum that sounded large even to the King’s prodigality, but he had always been utterly reckless of money, had refused even to glance at accounts, and had encouraged his followers to be the same.
These were all sums of money owing to the French ambassadors to the Porte, Thomas Cook, and other English, and Jews of Constantinople, to M. La Motraye, the French gentleman of Bender, besides to all the members of his suite.
Karl chafed at all this like a lion tickled with straws.
“We must have more money,” he said impatiently. “Pay these usurers cent for cent—get it, somehow. I must send an embassy to the Porte to say farewell. You must go, Grothusen, and with some magnificence. Poniatowski thinks the Sultan might lend money if he will not lend an army.”
“Your Majesty is resolved to return then?” asked the courtier, some hope springing in his heart at the thought of this dreary exile at length coming to an end.
“What else can I do,” returned the King, “when they break my authority in my absence?”
He made no reference to the wretched condition of his unhappy country and Grothusen knew that he never would; if he cared in the least for Sweden, or regarded her merely as the arsenal from which to take his weapons of war, it was impossible to tell, but he always showed an unconcern amounting to indifference to all that concerned the true welfare of his subjects.